


15 Minutes

by goodgriff



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Movie: Fight The Future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-28 07:04:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7630063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodgriff/pseuds/goodgriff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens after Mulder rescues Scully from the spaceship?</p>
            </blockquote>





	15 Minutes

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first X-Files fanfiction. I hope you enjoy!

The world around them was beautiful and white.

The spaceship, magnificent as it rose over their heads. Mulder couldn’t believe it. There it was. _There it was_. 

But it was so cold, so very cold, and they were in the middle of the Antarctic. In the middle of nowhere.

The spaceship became a speck in the sky, and now, all that was left was her fading cobalt eyes. Half-alert. Half-asleep. He found himself smiling at her, at his Scully. He found her. _Thank God, he had found her_.

The chill squeezed his beating heart, lulling it into complacency, into sweet rest. He put his head down on the snow, only for a moment. Just a second of rest. One second of….

She was pulling him, rolling him into her arms. He felt her tiny, strong hands. Her chilled cheeks. Her lips brushing across his forehead.

“We have to get up, Mulder.”

She was so soft, all-consuming. He almost felt warm.

“We have to get up,” her voice rose.

“Mulder!” 

His eyes flew open and he inhaled a gust of wind. “Cold,” he echoed her words from earlier.

“Don’t sleep.” She kissed his brow, his eyes. He had never felt so loved. He had never been so cold. “Don’t sleep. Look at me—I need you to open your eyes and look at me.”

“Scully,” he whispered hoarsely, and forced his lids to rise. 

“Hi,” she smiled, her eyes filling with frozen tears. “Hi,” she whispered again, reverently. 

He swallowed, pushing the thickness down in his throat. “Cat.”

“What?”

“Snow cat.”

“Where?” She twisted her head to the right, then to the left. “Where?” she implored again. She was shivering all around him.

“It was...” He turned his head away from the fading warmth of her chest, searching, but seeing nothing but white for miles.

“We’ll find it.” She nodded, her shivering almost violent against him, like a seizure. “We’ll… find it.”

She pulled him to his knees. “Help me up.” He audibly cringed as the cold seeped into his inadequate clothing. He focused on her set jaw—she was showing more strength than he knew she really had. She pulled again, and his knees locked into place. 

Finally, they were upright. His unprotected hands shook mercilessly as he tried to open the left pocket of her outerwear. “Compass,” he explained to her questioning eyes.

She wavered, and he pulled her to him, the paleness of her skin against her bright eyes alone giving him a sixth wind. 

“I’m not going to let you die.” He ran his hands through her icy, wet locks, forcing her to meet his eyes. “And you won’t let me die.”

A ghost smile moved across her face, cracking her dry lips. “Deal.” 

He held the compass out, fumbling for the direction where the snow cat stopped before he ran out of gas. He didn’t know what they would do once they found it, but he knew waiting here wasn’t an option. 

“We have ten, maybe fifteen minutes to find it before we freeze to death.” 

“Let’s go." They pulled each other forward. It was like walking through thick, wet, cold mud. She reached for his exposed hands and pulled them into her sleeves with hers. He grunted as the numbness transformed to painful needles against her smaller, delicate hands. She rubbed his hands relentlessly. 

They took five steps. Each one felt like a mile. 

“Mulder. Talk to me.” 

“Can’t move my lips.”

“Try.” He felt her fingers move up and down the back of his hands. Every stroke was a painful burning.

“If we get…” he swallowed, trying to find the words in the sudden windstorm, “…if we get out of here, we’re taking two weeks off and going to Jamaica.”

She pulled closer to him, running her hands up his sleeves. “Warm.”

“Yeah. Warm.” He stared ahead into the white nothingness and found the resolve to let himself dream as he took another step. “And we’ll sleep on the beach under the stars. And if you get cold, I’ll wrap you up in…in….”

“A blanket would be… nice.” She leaned into his side, trying to block her face from the wind. Another step. And another. “Can I have… one of those rum drinks with a little umbrella in it?”

He looked down at her, his chest heaving heavily with labored breath. Another step. “You can have anything you want.”

She looked up at him, her eyelids glistening with ice. “Now would be a great time for it to start raining sleeping bags.”

He pulled her impossibly closer, all pretense of personal space obliterated. “When I can feel my lips again, Scully….”

“I see it!” Her voice cracked in the wind. “Look, Mulder....”

The snow cat, barely visible, was no more than fifty feet away.

“Let’s move. Gotta get you out of this wind.” They moved together wordlessly now, their only focus getting to the snow cat. Soon, they made it to the driver’s door. 

“Fuck!” Mulder yelled as he touched the frozen door handle. He heaved twice, and the door broke free from its icy hold.

He grabbed her hand and pushed her inside. He followed, tumbling inside like a drunk toddler. He shut the door and leaned back against the seat. He was sweating profusely. 

“There’s extra gas in the back. Not enough to get us back to the base, but enough to generate some heat.” 

She nodded, closing her eyes against the seat cushion. He moved quickly, uncertain of how long he could keep going. He cleared away ice around the gas tank. The gas flowed slowly, and he leaned his head against the side of the vehicle. 

 

Scully’s eyes flew open. Mulder wasn’t back yet. How long had she been asleep? She slid across the seats and tumbled out of the door. The gas tank was open and he was on the ground beside it, passed out. 

“Mulder!” She ran to him, quickly shut the gas tank and heaved him up, throwing his arm around her shoulder. He was much too heavy for her, but her adrenaline was fierce, giving her a burst of inhuman strength. 

She pushed his unconscious body back into the snow cat, stepped up, and then slammed the door shut. She turned the key and the ignition groaned. Nothing. She turned the key again.

Nothing. Once more.

Nothing.

“ _Dear God. Please. Dear God_ ,” she cried and turned the ignition key again.

Suddenly, the engine roared to life and a soft rumble filled the entire cabin. “Oh, thank you, thank you,” she whispered to the Heavens. 

She turned back to her partner, and in the moment, she knew she couldn’t let him die. “Mulder,” she leaned over his chest and rubbed the side of his face. “Mulder, you have to wake up.”

His body was so still, so unlike him. 

“Mulder, I swear to God….” she cried, opening up his soggy fleece. “You can’t do this to me. _You can’t leave me_.”

She placed her right hand over he left and pressed down over his heart. “Mulder.”

He was still.

“It’s not time yet. I won’t let you do this,” she sobbed as she took a breath to give him CPR. 

Suddenly, he coughed violently. “Shhhh….shhhh….You’re okay. You’re alright,” she laughed deliriously and wrapped her arms around him. He opened his eyes and closed them, nestling into her chest. He mumbled something.

“What is it?”

He opened his eyes again and smiled. “I had ya… big time.” 

She laughed through her tears. “Oh my God. Just…don’t do that again. Okay?” She punched him in the shoulder and then took his face in her hands. “Okay?”

“Ditto.” He looped his finger through hers in a promise. “Give me the radio,” he groaned.

She pushed on his chest. “No, you lay back. I’ll radio.”

His brow furrowed. “I just saved you from soul-sucking aliens, Sully. Let me.”

“And I just saved you from nearly freezing to death two minutes ago, Mulder.” She kept her hand on his chest. 

“You hold the radio and I’ll talk.” She acquiesced and pulled the radio out of its case.

“Hello. Hello. This is Fox Mulder on Snow Cat 63.” Scully released her hold on the button. They waited. 

Then twenty seconds later: “Come in, Mulder. Reading you Five.”

Mulder and Scully locked eyes and smiled. Scully felt all of her emotions rise up to the surface. “We need a rescue. We’re at 83 degrees latitude South and 64 degrees longitude East. Over.” 

“Roger that. Are you hurt? Over.”

“Only exposure, and my partner was unconscious for at least 48 hours. Over.”

“There is a first aid kit and a blanket in the back of the vehicle. A rescue crew will be there in less than six hours. Listen for the radio signal, as it gets closer. Over.”

“Copy that.” Scully released the button and stared at Mulder, frightened. 

“Six hours,” he repeated.

“Six hours.” She nodded and shivered so hard she had to close her eyes to fight the pain. Mulder leaned over the seat, scrounging around in the back. 

“Here’s the blanket.” He threw it over the seat.

Scully nodded. “We should take off our clothes and let them dry,” she stated matter-of-factly. 

“You should get dry first,” Mulder said, his teeth chattering. 

“Your chivalry is stupid, Mulder. Take your clothes off too. We’ll share.” He nodded, too cold to argue with her. 

They turned their backs on each other, the slap and swish of fabric circling all around them. Mulder shook the blanket out over his legs. She fumbled beside him, gripping the edge of the blanket and crawling under it. 

Her skin pressed against his skin, and she shivered. He was even colder than she was. “Um, let’s spread out across the seats.”

They stretched out across the snow cat cabin, Mulder opening his arms to her so she could curl against his chest. Scully took a breath and pressed her chest to his side, wrapping her arms around him. 

They were quiet, moving their hands over each other gently to generate heat.

Scully felt their combined heat rising to her face. Mulder let out a long breath and laughed self-consciously. “If I wasn’t so Goddamn cold, this would be the most erotic moment of my life.” 

“Mulder,” Scully tried to sound stern, dropping her eyes and burying her face in his neck. Their unfinished hallway kiss hovered all around them as they touched each other’s skin for the first time in this intimate way.

“Don’t worry. I’m too cold to try anything besides stealing your body heat.” He hugged her to him and kissed her forehead. 

“I just want to get warm.” Suddenly, Scully rolled on top of him, her body flush against his. 

Scully looked into his eyes and Mulder swallowed. He let his hands run up and down her back-and then over her ass. “Does that help?” he whispered. 

She nodded and wrapped her hands around his back, letting her head fall to his chest. 

“Scully.”

“Yeah?”

“I take it back.”

“Take what back?” she peeked at him. 

“This is hands down the most erotic moment of my life.” The air crackled around them as they stared at each other, and they both began to feel warm. 

“Thank you, Mulder,” she said softly. 

He half-smiled. “For groping you?”

She shook her head. “For coming after me.”

His hands circled her back and he looked at her lips, his intention clear. “I’ll always come after you.” 

**The End**


End file.
